Dojji

Triple play. Nice. 6-4-3-6 Iglesias, Hulett, and Bates involved.

Good for him. He's the dark horse in a scrum for one of the few positions we actually have open this Spring so it's nice to see him show some effort.

And topically enough, he's missing his bullpen session with.. a stiff neck. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100313&content_id=8777838&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Jacko, you used to provide some thoughtful analysis. Now all you do is post angry and stir up crap. You're gunning it at 70 miles an hour down Banned Avenue. Something up with you that you feel like sharing? Cuz if you can't improve your social skills you may want to cool it for awhile

I suppose there's worse places I can put this, and I've been curious for awhile: Exactly why DO you use that unique text setting Nate? I'd just ask in PM, but I think it's more than me is curious.

No, "pulling Ortiz from the lineup" is pointless. If you're going to pull him from the lineup, you're basically giving up on him and it's time to release him. Dropping him in the lineup? That's another matter. But other than perhaps a few benchings for rest's sake, this guy needs to be in the lineup every day.

Concerns about David Ortiz are legitimate this year. I know I'm watching him very carefully too. I think RWTP is throwing in the towel way early too, but we need the guy, and I'm still having nightmares about last April and May.

I'd love to see it if it happened, but I suspect the writer is mistaking correlation for causation. The thing that helped Halladay get over the hump is a sea change in his command. The ground balls are nice, but a lot of #3's have a high GB rate. It's more of a symptom that you have pitched well, than any predictor of what will happen, because it's an indicator that tends to fluctuate within a fairly wide range throughout a pitcher's career. Halladay combines three things, all of which go into making him what he is. A K/8 rate consistntly around 8. Very high for a starter. A high groundball rate One of the lowest bb/9 in the league. It's the last one that I need to see from Buchholz before I'll say he's on a Halladay career track. He needs to drop a walk and a half per 9 innings to really combine all the tools Roy Halladay uses to be what he is. That said, he did show very good command in the minors, so if he can settle in, gain some confidence at the big league level, and STOP NIBBLING, he has as good a chance to take that step as anyone on the team.

I dunno, you look at those numbers at age 24, if he isn't a #1, it's pretty close -- like Zack Greinke 2008, only Greinke got a whole year of playing time and Halladay's a half season sample. Certainly Halladay's ERA and rate stats at that age are nothing to sneeze at. Buchholz, while not bad by any stretch of the imagination, is not as good as Halladay was at the same age. This is all kinda pointless. I'd like to hope this isn't the kind of conversation we're going to be having here going forward.

That worked so well with the sig. You do that on purpose?

You're BEING a dick. Feel free to keep making this conversation into a personal war for some obscure reason. You will anyway. And if you weren't lurking here mashing the refresh button, you wouldn't have been caught by the edits. Even I'm not THAT desperate.

That's kind of my point. Look, I'm not down on Buchholz. If you'd just concede my point, which you actually agree with, instead of being a dick about this, we'd be done here. And I am aware that the article doesn't directly compate Buchholz to Halladay, but the suggestion is still there. I'd tell you to try to deny it, but you're really good at that and I'm afraid you might manage it.

Halladay at age 24: 5-3, 3.16 ERA Buchholz at age 24: 7-4, 4.21 ERA. I'm not saying: -- that Buchholz Sucks -- that he doesn't have great stuff -- that he doesn't have a ton of potential -- that he doesn't deserve a spot in the Boston rotation -- that he won't be extremely productive considering he's probably our 4th or 5th starter most of the year I am saying: -- He is not yet Roy Halladay -- He has a few things to prove before a Halladay comparison makes sense -- I want to be a little surer about his confidence and "head issues" before I hype him as a generational ace -- Mentioning Halliday in this way is unfair to Buchholz because it creates unrealistic expectations -- I will be watching his performances as closely as I can this year If he improves enough this year or in the future, that comparison could be more apt later. Just not yet.

Most of you know that I live right on the boarder. There's a friend of mine at church who's a Canadian hockey fan. He and I exchanged some friendly trash talk before the olympic tournament, and then he made me eat my words after it was over, while we both admitted that it was one of the best single hockey games we've seen. I might be able to get a bit back this Sunday though. He's a Flyers fan.

Thread title: Yeah. OK. He didn't say it. He just introduced the topic in a manner that suggested it.

No one here is saying that buchholz is a terrible pitcher. Just no way is he Roy Halladay.

I think I can safely say not just no, but heck no. By Buchholz' age, Halladay was already a dominant #1. There's plenty of room for Buchholz to be a danged good pitcher without being as good as a generational talent like Halladay. and if one of our pitchers has a chance to reach that level it's likely Kelly rather than Buchholz. Besides, I'm still waiting for evidence that Buchholz has the "head" to pitch in the AL East.

I'm not who you'd asked, but I'd rank them between second and fifth.

I just said I hoped we didn't need more than steady average play. Scutaro will at least not embarrass us, and that's a plus considering our recent history at SS, but I think if Lowrie or Iglesias prove they're ready to go, Scutaro probably won't be standing in their way. On the other hand, it doesn't do to be delusional about the kind of improvement Scutaro actually represents. Nick Green had more positives than negatives, especially on defense, and actually worked out better than you'd reasonably expect him to. Scutaro isn't so much an upgrade as a tradeoff with a slightly different skillset. Where Scutaro gets his money is consistency. Unlike shortstops past, we have a very fair idea what we'll be getting from this guy and it's... ehh.. good enough.

UZR/150 wasn't kind to Scutaro before he was a blue Jay either. The fact is that the guy is not a particularly good defender at SS. He's steady, he's consistent, and he never sucks. He's a superlative utility man, but as a starting SS he's just not good. Hopefully steadily average play is enough, but I think we all have a gut feeling that Scutaro may be a problem this year. I would not be surprised if we needed to make another adjustment at shortstop before Scutaro's contract expires.

Huge props to Stuart for waking the team up. let's hope they stay that way.

Actually Green wasn't a half bad defender. Probably better than Scutaro. *withers under the mass basilisk stare of the forum* Seriously, go look it up for yourself. Green was +8.3 UZR/150 at SS, which is substantially above average. Scutaro was about neutral (+1.0). There's a reason I wanted this guy reupped as a utility man.

Anyone get a good look at Felix Doubront yet? I'd be interested in how he looked today.

Probably for about the same reason I approached this thread in the way I did. Because until we get at least some idea of which players are going to play at their level, get hurt, underperform or break out, we really have no idea how this year is gonna go.